'Jeopardy!' Gets Last Laugh After Backlash

Jeopardy! found itself in hot water Monday night when it included a clue regarding neopronouns during the Tournament of Champions quarterfinal, with some viewers saying they'll never watch again—but the show has had the last laugh.

During the episode, contestant Cris Pannullo selected a category called "Speech! Parts of Speech!" for $600. He was then presented with the clue "Xem, Xyrs, Xemself," to which he responded, "What are pronouns?"

"Those are pronouns," host Ken Jennings said. "Neopronouns."

Xem, xyrs, and xemself are gender-neutral pronouns that have been adopted by some people and organizations. They are used in addition to more common pronouns, including she/her, he/him, and they/them.

The inclusion of this category on Jeopardy! sparked outrage among some viewers, with many taking to X, formerly Twitter, to express their disapproval.

"Check Jeopardy off the list for shows I won't watch again," one user posted.

"Well I guess I won't watch Jeopardy anymore," another said.

"Jeopardy asked about xem/xyrs/xemself 'pronouns' during last night's show. How would you answer this?" the account End Wokeness posted, to which someone replied, "I would answer by turning off the television, never watching that effing show again."

Another commenter added: "@jeopardy has gone woke! Goodbye favorite show. Won't watch."

While some social media users criticized the show for "going woke," Jeopardy! doesn't seem to have been negatively affected.

In fact, Social Blade, a social media analytics website, shows that the quiz competition's Instagram account has gained thousands of followers in the past few days, indicating it is gaining popularity.

Monday, the day the episode with the neopronouns clue aired, the account gained 500 new followers. The following day, it gained 1,399 followers. Wednesday it accumulated another 1,739. And the follower count increased by another 2,703 Thursday.

This is a significant increase compared to previous days. On February 20, the account gained 53 followers, and it gained another 73 on February 21.

In the past 30 days, the account has gained 9,390 new followers, with a majority of those followers appearing in the past four days. At the time of writing, the account had 401,000 followers in total.

Newsweek contacted a representative of Jeopardy! via email for comment Friday.

The use of gender-neutral pronouns is becoming more common. According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2019, one in five Americans knows someone who uses gender-neutral pronouns.

The Pew survey said almost a third of Americans aged 18 to 29 personally know someone who prefers being referred to using a gender-neutral pronoun, while 73 percent in the same age bracket have heard of someone who does.

For those 30 to 49, 19 percent said they know someone who has asked to be referred to with gender-neutral pronouns, while 65 percent have heard of someone who prefers them. Those figures decrease for respondents aged 50 and above.